Post by Bonobo on Nov 8, 2009 14:41:46 GMT 1

GDYNIA, Poland - This shipyard is orphaned now, closed off from the world, cranes frozen over the Baltic Sea tides. It is for sale, but nobody offers to buy.

The shipyards linger at the base of the country's view of itself. The labor union of shipbuilders and technicians first cracked, then slowly eroded, communism's grip on Poland and, by extension, the rest of Eastern Europe. Workers struck, organized, and made demands; they stuck to their fight even in the face of bloody repression and martial law.

Through everything that came later - the rise from communism and reinvention through privatization, capitalism, and European Union membership - the shipyards remained a touchstone of Poland's national identity.

But sometimes the agents of change live long enough to become its victims. Today, the same shipyard workers who mounted the electrifying Solidarity labor union strikes find themselves unemployed. The fate of the yards themselves hangs like a politically laden albatross from the government's neck.

The shipyards have stayed vital for decades because of government subsidies; but the European Union is forcing Poland to privatize the yards - or sell the parts for scrap and close them.

It was here, in industrial cities strung along the Baltic coast, that Poland's battle against communism was waged and won. It was in Gdansk that an electrical technician named Lech Walesa hopped over a shipyard wall to take charge of a strike. Walesa would later win the Nobel Peace Prize and become Poland's first post-communist president.

Mindful of their history - not to mention the political weight of the workers and their union - the government has propped up the shipyards for years with billions of dollars in subsidies.

The European Union, however, concluded the subsidies had given the Polish shipbuilders an unfair edge over competition in the rest of Europe. The shipyard in Gdansk was sold in 2007. The other two were closed.

A frustrated Polish prime minister threatened to sack his treasury minister if the shipyards weren't sold off this summer. And for a flash, it looked as if a buyer had emerged. But the deadline to deposit the down payment rolled around in August, and the investor failed to deliver. The shipyards were thrown back into limbo.

Post by Bonobo on May 10, 2011 21:33:10 GMT 1

KGHM Miners Stage Violent Demonstration Demanding Wage Rise

Some 1,000 miners of the KGHM copper giant held a demonstration and stormed the company headquarters in the southwestern Polish town of Lubin on Thursday morning demanding a 300 zlotys wage rise for all employees.

They were confronted by the management board, which soon had to withdraw as the protest turned violent.

Some miners used beer cans and firecrackers to attack guards protecting the building and forced its glass doors. They stopped short of entering when they saw police inside.

The management rejected trade union demands to introduce universal pay hike and stood by its earlier proposals including a new motivational program, increasing premiums paid by employer to the pension program and making medical benefits a part of the collective agreement, KGHM said in a press statement after the event.

"I don't mind paying well for good work," CEO Herbert Wirth is quoted as saying. "But justice does not mean paying everyone the same amount."

"We don't want to spoil the motivational system with equal pay raises for all," he added.

KGHM argued that yielding to trade union demands would cost the group much more than 200 million zlotys, the statement read.

The management expressed its will to continue talks with the unions in the framework of public hearing.

Post by Bonobo on Mar 11, 2012 13:27:27 GMT 1

Unionists object to delaying the retirement age to 67 years of age. The current government is intent on introducing the new regulations gradually, by 3 months longer per year, to reach 67 in 2040 for both men and women, but it evokes people`s anger anyway.